Robert Siegel

Siegel was born June 26, 1947, in New York City, to parents Joseph and Edith Siegel (née Joffe). His father was a commercial education teacher, and his mother a secretary at Stuyvesant High School. His maternal grandfather claimed to descend from rabbinical scholar Mordechai Yoffe, and Siegel has identified on-air as Jewish. After graduating in 1964 from Stuyvesant, Siegel studied at Columbia University, graduating from Columbia College in 1968. During this time, he was an anchor for the reporting of the 1968 Columbia demonstrations at the college radio station, WKCR-FM. He attended Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for a year. == Career ==

Siegel's first professional broadcasting job was at WGLI in Babylon, New York, where he "did morning newscasts and a show that was part phone-ins, part Top Forty, all under the pseudonym Bob Charles." After graduate school, he worked for WRVR in New York from 1971 to 1976. Siegel was hired as a newscaster for NPR in Washington, D.C., in 1976, From 1979 to 1983 he was based in London, making him the first NPR staffer to be based overseas. Upon his return to America, he became the director of the News and Information Department, and was responsible for overseeing production of both All Things Considered and Morning Edition, as well as the creation of Weekend Edition. Siegel won three Silver Batons from Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University and the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award. Siegel has made cameo appearances in several television shows, including The Simpsons, Northern Exposure, BoJack Horseman and the film Yesterday Was a Lie. For the weeks of June 5, 2018, and February 17, 2020, Siegel guest-hosted NPR's On Point. Since September 2025, he has served as a host of The Opinions – The New York Times podcast. == Personal life ==

In 1973, Siegel married Jane Claudia Schwartz, and musician Leah Siegel. == References ==